Exploring the delicate, complex and sometimes difficult relationship between clients and architects, the exhibition charts the development of the architectural profession from Elizabethan to Victorian times. With case studies including Soane’s Dulwich Picture Gallery and Holy Trinity Church and Wren’s Royal Naval College, see rare pieces from the Museum’s collection including never before seen drawings, private and public documents, letters, correspondence, and models.

Analysing projects by Sir John Soane, as well as the work and influence of other illustrious British architects Sir Christopher Wren, William Chambers, Robert Adam and his brother James Adam, it is one of the most comprehensive surveys of the architecture profession ever displayed at Sir John Soane’s Museum.

Soane’s scheme for the Privy Council Chamber … ‘magnificent and suited to such an assemblage as the Lords of the richest Treasury probably in the world,’ as one observer put it.
Soane’s scheme for the Privy Council Chamber … ‘magnificent and suited to such an assemblage as the Lords of the richest Treasury probably in the world,’ as one observer put it.

...of the power of drawings, and their role in the often fractious relationship between architect and client, that is on full view in a fascinating new exhibition at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Drawn from the museum’s 30,000-strong collection, the drawings and models on display tell stories of their various roles in convincing clients, massaging reputations, propagating new styles – and even providing evidence in court.

The themes are surprisingly familiar, revealing parallels with contemporary architect’s battles with clients’ conflicting tastes, the process of dumbing down designs and “value engineering”, as well as fancifully Photoshopped depictions of completed buildings that bear little relation to built reality. In all, it shows that the slippery deception of the architectural visualisation is nothing new: they’ve been at it since the 19th century.

The truth-stretching genius of Soane’s assistant, Joseph Michael Gandy, is shown in full by his florid fantasies of both completed buildings and dashed hopes. A particularly revealing example is found in his painting of Soane’s multiple schemes for Holy Trinity Church in Marylebone, made in 1824. After submitting several designs for the church in his preferred neoclassical manner, Soane was directed by the Vestry to produce alternatives in Norman and Gothic styles. Once again, he got his own way, and the completed classical scheme is shown alongside the alternative requested designs, which fade into the shadows. But it is drawn before a backdrop of other unrealised church schemes, piled high on an imaginary hillside, as if to say: “Behold my ability to work in whichever style you so please” – even if the reality of commissioning the man would entail him fighting for the classical option every time.

Such battles didn’t always end in his favour. Indeed, his projects for public clients were often stories of his designs being diluted, if not sabotaged, by the whims of “dilettantes” and “meddling amateurs”.